Unraveled, Week 36/2021

I have to say that I rather like having the start of the work week be a Wednesday! We are expecting some rain to move in later this morning, so I'm keeping this short so I can get out for my walk before then, but I can't let a Wednesday go by without checking in with Kat and the Unravelers.

I actually don't have much to share this week because with a busy work week last week and the holidays this week, I haven't done much crafting or reading. I'm also holding off on starting any new projects until the Pigskin Party starts tomorrow (because WIPs don't count), but I also didn't like the idea of my hands being idle until then, so I started a dishcloth -- just a variation on the old standby Ballband Dishcloth:

The multicolored yarn is Knit Picks Dishie and the dark blue is Lily Sugar'n Cream Denim. I expect I'll be able to finish this up at some point today, because it's mindless enough knitting that I can work on it while reading stuff for work.

Yesterday I also finished (and blocked) my Shifty swatch, and now I have a bit of a conundrum that I hope you all can help me with!

This swatch was done on US 3/3.25 mm needles (bottom) and US 2/2.75 mm needles (top). My stitch gauge is spot on with the smaller of the two needles and about a stitch and a half off with the larger size. Here is my conundrum: My bust size falls between two sizes in the pattern (34 and 38 inches), and the recommended ease is 2 inches of negative ease to 2 inches of positive ease. I'd prefer to have a little bit of positive ease because I always wear my sweaters with a shirt underneath them. If I go with the US 2, the smaller size would give me 1 inch of negative ease but the larger size would give me 3 inches of positive ease. If I go with with the US 3, I could knit the smaller size and end up with almost 2 inches of positive ease, but the fabric is also a little looser. Then there's a third possibility -- use a US 2.5/3.0 mm needle -- that would give me a fabric somewhere in between and I could knit the smaller size and likely end up with closer to zero ease or minimal positive ease. What do you think?

I haven't done very much reading since last Wednesday, in large part because work got very busy, so I've only finished one book -- but it was a good one!

Both Mary and Katie had raved about A Tale for the Time Being, so I was excited to read it when my hold from the library came up several weeks earlier than I was expecting it. It took me several chapters to get into it, but once I did, I was hooked. This was one of those books that I found myself thinking about any time I wasn't reading it, and I found it to be so delightfully original in how it approached the story. It's not a book that's easy to describe, but I will say that what I found most interesting was that the author was a main character in it, even though it's considered fiction. That had me wondering often what was real, if any of it was, and what was made up. I can definitely see myself rereading this at some point, because I'm sure I missed things in my excitement to see how it would end. I gave it 5 stars.

Currently I am rereading Jane Eyre, which I have read many times and which I reread every several years (it's one of my all-time favorites). It is the classic that Sara and Chelsey are discussing this month on the Novel Pairings podcast. The copy I've linked to here is the paperback I used when I read it the first time, for my eighth-grade English class, and the price listed on it is $2.95! I've also started listening to the Craftlit podcast again after a long hiatus, and the new book The Leavenworth Case, which is entirely new to me.

What are you crafting and reading these days?